


Monody

by Eisengrave, selwyn



Series: Gifts from the Divine [HashiMada RP Collection] [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 02:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30065214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisengrave/pseuds/Eisengrave, https://archiveofourown.org/users/selwyn/pseuds/selwyn
Summary: What if the battle of the valley had ended differently?[Short drabble]
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Series: Gifts from the Divine [HashiMada RP Collection] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211912
Kudos: 20





	Monody

This was it. The final battle, the final clash. What rich, bitter irony that they would be standing on two banks of a river, though what remained of the once beautiful landscape hardly sufficed as such a thing. 

The earth had been shattered by their conflict. The trees had burned in Madara’s rage. The mountain had shivered and broken beneath their blows. It would never be the same place as the one they’d discovered for themselves as boys. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Hashirama felt his breath grow ragged and his arm numb with pain. It was as burned as the forest at this point, his armor plates shattered under the onslaught. But he yet stood.

And faced the mad man responsible for all of this. Madara looked as worn as he, but he seemed to find some kind of pleasure in the fight. He always had, despite his hopes and dreams of peace, loved battle against an equal. Eventually, the only one to match him had been Hashirama.

Perhaps Madara should never have stopped Hashirama from killing himself in the name of peace. Perhaps Madara would have grown to love and lead the village in his place. Perhaps, it would have saved Madara this long and painful descent into madness.

Even now, as Hashirama waited for Madara to dart across the water to meet him, he did not feel hatred for his former friend turned bitter enemy once more. Only pity, regret and a bone-deep exhaustion. Not only of this battle, but all battles.

Konoha lay behind him, heavy on his shoulders. For their…no, for his dream, he was supposed to kill Madara. That’s what he’d promised Tobirama before he left.

Would a silent apology be enough?

Madara moved. Hashirama felt his body react before his mind did, and they met in the middle of the river.

_ One. Two. Three. _

Three seconds were what it took for Madara to cross, cut, and skid to a stop on the opposite bank. He turned immediately when he did, half-expecting Hashirama to be on the other end too. But instead, he’d collapsed in the shallow water halfway.

“I told you,” Madara said, grinning. “You wouldn’t make it to the other side.”

And he expected something. For the body to turn into wood, for Hashirama to come out from somewhere, for anything but the curious silence as Hashirama stared up at him from water that grew pink, then red.

“Madara…”

Hashirama tried to lift himself back up, one arm useless, the other refusing to be strong enough to lift him out of the water. He felt his other hand sink through the surface, touch the rocky riverbed just below.

His breath, ragged before, came to him calmly now. He didn’t know what more he could have given to this fight, to the village, to Madara. His life would finally be the sacrifice claimed. Blood darkened the river beneath him. He couldn’t feel much of the wound, it had been a precise strike and he was going into shock too fast to try and heal himself.

“You…” He wanted to speak, but his other hand slipped down to the riverbed, and he had nothing left to hold himself up with. Face down in a shallow river, defeated by a man he once called his closest friend. It was a perfectly shameful way to die. 

What was this? A trick? From Hashirama? That’d be like the sun rising from the west. Madara swung his sickle up to point at him. “Stand up!” he barked. “You can’t fool me.”

He stretched his senses outward, trying to locate where he was likely hiding while this clone played up the death act. Perhaps in the water… or underground?

And yet, no matter how hard he looked, all he could feel was Hashirama in front of him, his chakra wavering in a way that it never did. Never could. Even after they fought for a full day, Hashirama’s aura had always been steady as the deep earth.

“Stand up, Hashirama,” Madara ordered him, gritting his teeth.

Madara’s demand would go unanswered.

Hashirama could hear the water, faintly. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to anymore. He didn’t need to do anything anymore. Would Madara kill everyone as soon as he realized and understood he’d won?

Yes. He would. Hashirama’s chakra spasmed with despair, but it couldn’t channel back into his body, not in the way it would need to in order to heal him.

Tiny rocks grazed his palms, his face, somehow more tangible than his own body. 

Had he closed his eyes? He couldn’t see anymore anyway, it did not matter.

His lack of answer frustrated him, enough that Madara threw caution to the wind and approached Hashirama. He aimed a kick at his side, expecting his foot to be grabbed and twisted, but Hashirama didn’t move.

His foot stopped an inch short of his body.

His expression spasmed, confusion and disbelief, and Madara suddenly knelt and turned him over. Hashirama felt real, was solid and here, and no tricks came popping up despite the passing seconds. The water around him was crimson.

“Don’t act,” he said. Something trembled inside him, radiating impossible, no, this is a trick. “It’s unbecoming of you. We have to finish this.”

The movement was sudden and nauseating. If Hashirama had enough energy to empty his stomach, he would. Instead, he hung limply in Madara’s grasp. The water that ran off of his face and hair dripped over the wounds, collecting more crimson for the river on its way back.

Hashirama heard Madara’s voice. Rough. Disbelieving. Challenging him as if he couldn’t see his own victory.

“…s’done,” his mouth felt so sluggish, why was this taking so long? Had Madara not aimed as well as he thought?

Hashirama is stronger than me. That was what Madara had said when they were boys and it had been the truth. It’d remained the truth in the years to come too - no matter how strong he became, he’d never been able to beat him. He’d accepted that. Once he found no other opponent to ever give him a good fight, he’d learned to appreciate what Hashirama was in his life.

He’d come here for one last fight and the piece of him that he needed for his plans. He’d never actually meant to kill him.

…had planned on dying at his hand, in fact.

“Hashirama,” he said, pulling him up onto his lap. Denial battled with disbelief. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Hashirama was supposed to have won now. “No… no. That’s not how this goes. Hashirama!”

Madara’s fingers trembled as he unbuckled his breastplate and it fell down into the water with a splash. His aim had been true - his sickle had scored a deep cut straight into Hashirama’s major organs. The blood loss alone gave him only seconds left to live.

Madara didn’t believe it. Blood loss. It was such a mundane way to go. It was the death of normal people - other people. It wasn’t suitable for the man who was the god of shinobi. He touched the deep gash and more hot blood seeped through the torn skin. It couldn’t be possible. It couldn’t be real.

“…you were supposed to win,” he said numbly.

It was hard to keep himself listening. It was the only sense that seemed to obey him. Hashirama moved his lips, but sound struggled to come out.

Eventually, he managed. Seconds seemed to be minutes, perhaps death was in disbelief as well.

“Don’t…” he spoke on, but his voice weakened with every breath. How troublesome. Now that he finally had Madara’s attention. Instead of speaking, then, he forced his eyes open. Everything was so dim and distant. Madara was a blur of black and white above him. But that didn’t matter, as long as Madara was looking at him.

“Konoha.” _Please. Please let it be enough. Please let my life pay for theirs._

“What?” Even now, it was about the fucking village. “I didn’t come here for Konoha,” Madara hissed at him, somehow angry at the fact that he’d won. Hashirama was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be the only one Madara could never beat. He wasn’t… he couldn’t…

“Don’t die,” he whispered. “Do something - you’re a healer! Fix it!”

He grabbed Hashirama’s hand and planted it on the wound, as if that would help him. “This is just a cut,” Madara said. “I’ve done worse to you. You can’t just die.”

Hashirama’s hand just slid over the slick blood on his chest, becoming stained with it the longer Madara pressed it there. If he let it go, it would simply slip down again.

“Will you…is it enough?”

Hashirama struggled now, this upright position making the pain sharper, the urge to let go stronger. Madara…Madara needed to understand that his rampage ought to end here, and now. 

“Please…enough. Please, Madara.” That had to convey everything Hashirama didn’t have the strength to say. His head sagged forward a bit, his eyes finally gave up their battle to stay on Madara and closed. He breathed out one more time, and then he was still. 

“Hashirama. Hashirama!” He wasn’t responding. Madara couldn’t process it, refused to even accept it. He shook him and when that got no response, he backhanded him. All it did was rock his head to the side in a limp, hideous way, like a doll that’d been treated too roughly.

Madara stared. He felt… what did he even feel? Underneath the shock, the denial, the baffled anger… he was just…

…he felt sorrow.

“You weren’t supposed to die,” Madara told him. “That’s not how this works, Hashirama. You’re supposed to win. You always win!”

Ever since they were kids. He’d always been one step ahead of him, just a little out of reach, the goalpost he could always look towards when nothing else was challenging. And of course Madara threw everything into this fight, because he could do that against Hashirama. Their battles were meant to be devastating. Earth-shaking. And at the end of it, Hashirama always came out on top.

Except now. Except for when it actually mattered.

He let go of him. Hashirama slid off his lap and into the stream. It carried his blood away greedily and somehow, even now, Madara still expected him to stand up and grow a forest around them.

And yet… nothing.

Madara stood up slowly. Then, with cold fingers, he picked up Hashirama’s corpse. He was completely limp but Madara lifted him easily. Death made Hashirama smaller and darker, as if a cloud had passed over his eternal inner sun. 

Konoha wouldn’t have him, he decided. When Hashirama had been alive, the village had eaten him piece by piece out of Madara’s hands and he’d been helpless to stop it. But not this time.

This time, he’d get to keep him.


End file.
